Installation

Functionality

Linux MTP support is provided by installing the libmtp package. It can be installed on its own and used to access devices. However, a number of packages are available that use it as a dependency and add additional convenience (e.g. filemanager) functionalities and compatibility with particular device types - which includes improving transfer access speeds.

All of them aim at better functionality and performance over libmtp. Since there are a lot of different USB devices, you might want to research first which one looks most suitable for yours.

Warning:libmtp does not handle newer Android devices well - hanging transfers and problems with remote file system browsing are very common, poor performance is expected with most devices. Furthermore, if you have a damaged USB cable, programs utilizing libmtp may crash or hang indefinitely until you disconnect the device. It is recommended to connect your device with the USB Mass Storage (if available), or using ADB (for example adbfs-rootless-gitAUR) to transfer files, which performs better on most devices and supports additional Android-specific features (like installing APKs, managing packages on the device, backing up data or accessing the device's shell).

Tip: It is recommended to reboot your computer after installing MTP related packages.

go-mtpfs

Note: Mounting with go-mtpfs might fail if an external SD Card is present. If you try to access your device while having an SD card and go-mtpfs complains, try removing the SD card and mounting again.

Install android-udev, which will allow you to edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules and apply to your idVendor and idProduct, which you can see after running mtp-detect. To the end of the line, add your user OWNER="<user>".

Mount device on ~/mnt:

$ go-mtpfs ~/mnt

mtpfs

Note: The following is likely to not work and you might have to resort to gphoto2 or a file manager with gvfs support like PCManFM.

First edit your /etc/fuse.conf and uncomment the following line:

user_allow_other

Mount your device on ~/mnt:

$ mtpfs -o allow_other ~/mnt

Android File Transfer

FUSE interface

Mount your device on ~/my-device:

$ mkdir ~/my-device
$ aft-mtp-mount ~/my-device

If you want album art to be displayed, it must be named albumart.xxx and placed first in the destination folder. Then copy other files. Also, note that fuse could be 7-8 times slower than ui/cli file transfer.

Qt user interface

Start the application, choose a destination folder and click any button on the toolbar. Available options are: Upload Album, Upload Directory and Upload Files. The latter two are self-explanatory. Upload album searches the source directory for album covers, and sets the best available cover.

Media players

You can also use your MTP device in music players such as Amarok. To achieve this, you might have to edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules (the MTP device used in the following example is a Galaxy Nexus).
Run:

To mount or dismount from a command with gvfs-mtp use Bus and Device numbers, e.g. to mount gvfs-mount mtp://[usb:001,007]/ and to unmount gvfs-mount -u mtp://[usb:001,007]/. The mounted device will be available in a directory that begins with mtp:host= and is located under /run/user/$UID/gvfs/.

Disable automount of MTP devises with gvfs you will need to change value true to false for variable AutoMount that is located in /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/mtp.mount.

Note: The file managers can have own options for automount. On start they checking for all available mountable devices.

If your device isn't showing up in the file manager then the libmtp is missing a native support and is not currently available in the list of the supported devices. If you will try to mount by using command line you may also get an error

Device 0 (VID=XXXX and PID=XXXX) is UNKNOWN.
Please report this VID/PID and the device model to the libmtp development team

The workaround to make it shown in the file manager is to write an udev rule for the device but it is no guaranty that you will be able to mount it with by using MTP connection.

Use ID number that represents by pattern vendorId:productID,e.g. 04b7:88a9, and make an udev rule by creating a configuration file

The file managers with support for gvfs will be able to show MTP devices and mount them if supported by libmtp but if has no support and cannot be opened then change settings in the phone to PTP and install gvfs-gphoto2 for having access at least to the photos, command line mounting of PTP is a little similar to mounting of the MTP devices: gvfs-mount gphoto2://[usb:002,019]/.

Note: If you getting limited access to the device and cannot use standard commands from command line such as e.g. cp,ls then look for gvfs own alternatives, ls -1 /usr/bin/gvfs-*.

Troubleshooting

libmtp

jmtpfs

Input/output error upon first access

Symptoms: jmtpfs successfully mounts, but as soon as one attempts to access files on the device (e.g. via ls), an error is reported:

cannot access <mount-point>: Input/output error

This appears to be a security feature: MTP does not work when the phone is locked by the lockscreen. Unlock the phone and it should work again as long as the cord remains connected.

kio-mtp

If you are not able to use the action "Open with File Manager", you may work around this problem by editing the file /usr/share/apps/solid/actions/solid_mtp.desktop.

Change the line Exec=kioclient exec mtp:udi=%i/ to Exec=dolphin "mtp:/".